As is known, cooking tops and similar household cooking appliances are equipped, for supporting pots over burners, with grates that may have different shapes and/or dimensions depending on the application.
In fact, the latter are arranged around the burners, and their shape must keep a correct distance between the bottom of the pots laid thereon and the corresponding flame divider, so as to promote the generation of flames having the proper supply of oxidant air and ensuring good thermal exchange between them and the pot bottom, which mainly occurs by convection and irradiation.
The grates are usually made of metallic material, typically steel, and take up a large part of the cooking top of the household appliance, thus ensuring good pot stability.
For this reason, some grates consist of metal wires (typically made of stainless steel) welded together, or are made of cast iron or other cast metals (e.g. bronze, brass, etc.), and usually have a frame-like configuration with pot support arms or spokes extending inwards.
The geometry of the grate frame is usually polygonal (e.g. square, rectangular, trapezoidal) or circular, but it can be said that, de facto, there are no limitations as concerns the configuration of the grates, which are components that must be consistent with the design of the household cooking appliances for which they are intended.
One important aspect related to the grates from a structural and functional viewpoint is their stability on the respective top of the household appliance, on which also the stability of the pots depends.
It can be easily understood, in fact, that a grate not resting stably on the underlying surface may shake and impair the stability of a pot laid thereon.
In order to overcome this problem, grates are often provided with small feet or support appendices engaging into holes or seats provided on the top of the household appliance, so that they can be properly secured and prevented from making undesired movements or getting unbalanced, e.g. when pots are laid on or removed from the burners.
Said feet or protrusions may however scratch or damage the surface of the cooking top, especially when the latter are enameled or made of delicate materials or have delicate surface finishes, like quartz and glass tops, as well as those made of stainless steel.
For this reason, it is known to apply, under the grates, rubber pads or gaskets acting as cushions and preventing any direct contact between the grates and the support surface of the household appliance.
One example of a grate for household cooking appliances which is equipped with such pads, also commonly called “rubber pieces” by those skilled in the art, is shown in the published European patent application EP 964 207, which relates to a grate comprising curved pot support arms arranged in a cross-like pattern relative to the burner.
The curved arms are thin, and a rubber pad is applied to the underside thereof, which performs the above-described functions.
From a functional viewpoint, rubber pads are fully effective because they can prevent damage to the surface of the tops of cookers and other household cooking appliances.
However, they are additional elements of the grate that, though cost-effective adversely affects the final economical results in large-scale industrial productions such as those for gas cookers and other household cooking appliances.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a pot support grate having such structural and functional features that allow overcoming the above-mentioned limitations of the prior art.